Manual key operated message generator

ABSTRACT

A flat circular disk of plastic material is impressed with parallel grooves, each extending over a substantial portion of the circumference of its track. The disk is mounted on a turn table and the latter provided with a drive mechanism to rotate it one complete revolution at a uniform angular velocity each time the drive is actuated. Each of the grooves carries a recorded message component and is provided with a transducer for recovering that message and broadcasting it through a loudspeaker with the aid of a suitable amplifier. A keyboard is provided with electrical switches equal in number to the recorded message components; upon the actuation of any one of these switches the turntable drive is set in motion and the transducer output corresponding to the desired message is connected to the amplifier. Any message whose vocabulary is restricted to the recorded components may be generated and broadcast by sequentially depressing the appropriate switches of the keyboard.

United States Patent OBrien Oct. 29, 1974 MANUAL KEY OPERATED MESSAGEGENERATOR [76] Inventor: Gerard OBrien, 33 Pampapra Ave.,

Jersey City, NJ. 07307 [22] Filed: Feb. 22, 1972 [21] Appl. No.: 227,759

[52] US. Cl. 179/1004 R, 35/8 A, 35/35 C, 179/100.1 PS, 179/1001 C,179/1004 D, 274/9 R, 274/9 A, 274/9 R 51] Int. Cl ..Gl1b 31/114,611!)3173,0111) 31.80 [58] Field of Search.....-.....T.179/1004 R, 100.4 D,179/1002 MD, 100.2 CA, 100.3 B, 100.1 C, 100.1 PS: 340/174.1 C; 274/13R, 14, 9 A, 9 R, 4 H; 35/8 A, 35 C, 9 A; 84/128 [56] References CitedUNITED STATES PATENTS 2,471,534 5/1949 Muth 84/128 2,500,947 3/19503,086,297 4/1963 3,483,633 12/1969 3,516,175 6/1970 3,563,554 2/19713,610,638 10/1971 3,711,658 l/l973 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS268,726 5/1929 ltaly 35/35 C Primary ExaminerRaymond F. Cardillo, Jr.Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Lilling & Siegel [57] ABSTRACT olution at auniform angular velocity each time the drive is actuated. Each of thegrooves carries a recorded message component and is provided with atransducer for recovering that message and broadcasting it through aloudspeaker with the aid of a suitable amplifier. A keyboard is providedwith electrical switches equal in number to the recorded messagecomponents; upon the actuation of any one of these switches theturntable drive is set in motion and the transducer output correspondingto the desired message is connected to the amplifier. Any message whosevocabulary is restricted to the recorded components may be generated andbroadcast by sequentially depressing the appropriate switches of thekeyboard.

4 Claims, 11 Drawing Figures l l I'll/ W i l/m 1 mil/If Mb MANUAL KEYOPERATED MESSAGE GENERATOR BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This applicationis related to my co-pending application United States Ser. No. 227,760(filed Feb. 22, I972), filed concurrently herewith and entitled POR-TABLE VOICE MESSAGE GENERATOR.

The present invention relates to a device capable of generating voicemessages by combining elements of a pre-recorded vocabulary. Thepreferred embodiment of the invention is controlled from a keyboard,analogous to the controls of a typewriter or a piano, on which each keycorresponds to, and is marked for identification, to one of thepre-recorded message ele ments. The message elements are recorded on aflat disk, analogous to a convential gramaphone record, on a set ofparallel concentric grooves covering the major portion of thecircumference of this record. Individual transducers are allocated foreach of the grooves and are connected to the amplifier/speaker outputsegment of the device through electrical switches controlled by the keysof the control board. Upon the depression of the appropriate key, themessage element is played from the record through the speaker; thecomplete message being composed by the successive depression of thedesired keys. The novelty and utility of the invention isimmediatelyapparent; i.e., it can be used as a musical instrument, witheach key corresponding to a given note or chord of the scale selected;as a training device; as an interference-free voice communicatorrequiring only a narrow bandwidth transmission link; as a translator asnoted herein below, indeed in many similar applications.

It is foreseen that one of the most beneficial applications of theinstant invention will be aiding handicapped persons such as blindpeople, or mutes who can only communicate by sign language or inwriting. With such severe restrictions, the device of the inventionwould permit such persons to converse with the average person unfamiliarwith the hand codes or braille, and the messagegenerating machineenables them to acquire an artificial voice.

Similarly the device can be used as an instantaneous translatingmachine, the keys being marked with words and phrases of one language,known to the operator, while the corresponding recorded messages carrythe identical information in a language unknown to him. With the aid oftwo such machines individuals sharing no common language may carry on aconversation within the limitations of the recorded vocabulary.

That the above limitation is not a serious one is readily shown byreferences in the prior art to such machines as the Japanese tanakatypewriter, the organ and many other keyboard controlled machines whoserange of expression contains several hundred components, more thansufficient to encompass a particular purpose, including the basicvocabulary of any spoken language.

As a training device, a typical application concerns the use of themessage generator as the sending component of a Morse codecommunications link. A person completely unschooled in the code canreadily operate a keyboard marked with characters to be encoded, thecorresponding dot-dash patterns being obtained from the record. Sincethe correct pattern is audible immediately upon the depression of thekey, the trainee rapidly learns to associate a given pattern with thecharacter he has just encoded.

In an analogous manner the translating machine previously described maybe used for learning purposes, the trainee actuates the key representinga given word and hears the word repeated to him in the language he isattempting to learn. He is free to proceed at any speed, to repeatindividual words as often as he desires and to combine them in arbitrarypatterns, thus reinforcing the basic effect in a manner whichpre-recorded instructional records cannot duplicate. In addition, themachine can also be used to generate predetermined sound effects, if sodesired.

SUMMARY The present disclosure teaches the ways and means of theconstruction of a device for the generation of a message ultimatelydecipherable by the human ear. The purpose of the invention is achievedby prerecording the sound-patterns, words and phrases which may be usedas building blocks of the message to be generated and providing acontrol console through whose manipulation a human operator, or aspecially programmed mechanical or electronic computing device, cancombine the pre-recorded elements into a variety of intelligible anduseful messages.

It is an aim of the invention to describe the manner in which therequisite mechanical, electrical and electronic components may becombined into the aforementioned message generator.

It is a further aim of the invention to teach techniques of constructionand operation leading to the greatest economy in the building andutilization of such a device.

It is a further aim of the invention to describe methods by which thecapacity of the message generating device to store and replayinformation may be increased. I

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The preferred embodiment of theinvention will be described in detail by reference to the encloseddrawings, in which;

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a manually operated voice messagegenerator or message generating unit of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a partial sectional view of the operating elements of thedevice or generator shown in FIG. 1;

FIGS. 3 and 4 show alternate selection strips for the device of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a plan view of the recording utilized in the embodiment ofFIG. 1;

FIGS. 6 and 7 are mutually orthogonal sections of the recording alongthe lines 6-6 and 7-7 depicted in FIG. 5;

FIG. 8 is a sectional view of an alternate embodiment with adouble-sided recording;

FIG. 9 is a partial sectional view along the lines 9-9 of the transducerelement of the device shown in FIG.

FIG. 10 is a view, partially in section, of the mechanical components ofa keyboard operated embodiment of the invention, and

FIG. 11 is a form, or chart, illustrating typical vocabularies capableof being employed with the voice message generator of the invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The simple, manually operatedembodiment of the message generator is illustrated in FIG. 1, in which arecord bearing a plurality of parallel grooves, impressed withpre-recorded message elements, is mounted on a turn-table 4 carried on abase 6. A transducer, or pick-up, 20 is mounted near a pivoted end of anarm 3 and the latter rests in one of the grooves of a serrated guide-bar7. The transducer 29 is connected to an amplifier 8 provided with aspeaker 9. A drivesystem, not illustrated specifically for the purposeof clarity, is provided for turning the turn-table 4 at a predeterminedspeed corresponding to the speed at which the recording was originallymade and cooperates with a brake 5 to accomplish exactly one revolutionof the turn-table each time the message generator is actuated.

Details of the transducer assembly 29 are shown in FIG. 2. A needle 21serves as the sensor, attached to a transducer cartridge 22. Theassembly 29 is pivoted around a pin 23 on an arm 24 rigidly affixed tothe assembly by suitable means, such as a rivet 26. A counterweight 25supplies the necessary force for maintaining the needle 21 in contactwith the record 10, the latter lying flat on the turn-table 4 andcentered on a pin 19, which is the upper end of the shaft of theturn-table. The record 1 is prevented from rotating relative to theturn-table by an auxiliary pin 10, offset from the rotational center ofthe record and engaging a mating perforation a therethrough.

In operation, the arm 3 is lifted and brought to rest in the trough ofthe guide-bar 7 corresponding to the message element which it is desiredto broadcast through the speaker 9. The drive system is then actuatedand rotates the record 1 through a complete revolution accomplishingthat purpose. The arm 3 is then moved through an arc to another troughin the bar 7, thereby placing it over a different groove in the record 1and the drive system is actuated again, replaying a different messageelement. The guide-bar 7 is marked with symbols identifying the messageelements recorded on record 1 on a groove corresponding to the troughnearest the symbol. FIG. 3 shows a guide-bar 71 marked with the numbersand auxiliary phrases necessary for generating any message concerningstrings of numbers and arithmetical operations consisting of additionand subtraction. Similarly FIG. 4 shows a guidebar 72 marked with theletters of the alphabet. Either of the guide-bars 71 and 72 may be usedwith records carrying the pre-recorded sounds shown on them in English,some other language or in a pre-arranged code, as desired.

FIG. 5 shows details of the record 1, including mounting holes 9a and10a for respectively engaging the center pin 9 and offset pin 10 of theturn-table 4. A series of parallel grooves are impressed on the record,beginning and ending in a blank sector 11, it being arranged that theneedle 21 comes to rest in the sector 11 between successive operationsof the device; enabling it to be shifted to a radial positioncorresponding to any one of the impressed grooves.

The limitations of conventional record cutting equipment is also aconsideration in the construction of the message generator; long messageelements or phrases may require the use of slower speeds of rotation,for example. Also record disks having a plurality of concentric circulargrooves, omitting blank sector 11, could be employed; such recordscannot effectively be made on existing equipment due to the tendency ofthe engraving needle to undercut the beginning of a concentric groovewhen approaching it at the end of a revolution.

FIG. 6 is a sectional view of a particular groove 12 in the record, inthe region of the blank sector 11. FIG. 7 is another section of therecord 1, orthogonal to the section of FIG. 6, indicating that thegroove 12 is a part of group of five closely spaced grooves, eachcarrying the same message, so arranged that any misalignment of therecord 1 on the turnable 4, of the arm 3 in the guide-bar 7, or of thecartridge 22 in the transducer assembly 20, can be accomodated by theneedle 21 entering a groove slightly offset from the center groove 12 ofthe given group, without thereby generating an erroneous or confusingmessage through the speaker 9.

The record depicted in FIG. 7 is suitably restricted to thirty messagecomponents on a conventional twelve inch disk rotating at thirty-threeand a third revolutions per minute, (33 its rpm), each component beingcarried on five parallel grooves.

Another embodiment of the invention, as shown in FIG. 8, achieves alarger capacity by utilizing both sides of a record disk simultaneously.A record 301 is mounted in vertical alignment on a shaft 309 passingthrough a matching, centrally located orifice 309a in the record 301.The shaft 309 and the supporting bearings and drive system are omittedfrom the illustration for the sake of clarity.

The record 301 is flanked by yoke pieces 306a and 30612, on a radialalignment with the center of rotation of the record, which carryindividual transducer elements 122 corresponding in number and radialspacing to the grooves on either face of the record disk 301. Theneedles 121 of the transducers 122 are in permanent contact with theirassigned grooves and generate electrical signals representing thepre-recorded message components from these grooves on each rotationalmovement of the disk. These signals are fed, by suitable wiring, into aswitchbox 345, suitably composed of a number of inter-connected relaysor solid-state switching elements, which may be so controlled from akeyboard or other command device, such as a computer (not shown), via acable 357, as to connect the desired transducer output to another cable351 leading to an amplifier and, thence, to a loudspeaker.

With this embodiment the number of possible message elements is firstdoubled by the simultaneous use of both sides of the recording 301 andfurther increased by the possibility or reducing the number of theredundant recording grooves; the transducers not being moved during theoperation of the machine the relative alignment between a particulargroove and its associated transducer 122 may be made very close byadjustments to the yokes 306a and 306b and by the individual mountings124 of the transducer elements.

FIG. 9 illustrates in detail the relative positions of the record 301, aparticular groove 312 and the corre sponding transducer 122 and itsneedle 121 with transmission leads 126 and 127 issuing from thetransducer for connection to the switchbox 345.

Yet another embodiment of the instant invention is shown in FIG. 10. Apedestal bearing 33 is mounted in the bottom of a rectangular enclosure106 and carries one end of a shaft 109 in a vertical alignment. Twoturntables, 104a and 104b, are mounted on shaft 109 and supportrecording disks 101 and 201 respectively. A gear-wheel 32 is keyed tothe shaft 109 and is engaged by a pinion 31 driven from a drive-motor 30whose shaft 304 is also engaged by a brake 105. An internal partition133 separates the drive and record compartments of the enclosure 106 andprovides an upper bearing for the shaft 109.

Each of the records 101 and 201 is surmounted by a bank of transducersmounted at the end of support members pivoted on one wall of theenclosure 106; a typical assembly being represented by transducer 222,support 224 and pivot 229.

There are, as noted hereinabove, thirty groups of recording grooves ineach record disk, each supplied with a transducer. Each transducer 222is connected electrically to a particular switching element in akeyboard 40 by one of cables 58 and 59. Each switching elementrepresents a particular message element; switch 41 being marked with theletter F for example and switch 42 with the letter O. Each of theseswitches is provided with suitable contacts which, upon depression ofthe switch key, cause the turn-table shaft 109 to execute one revolutionthe command signal being transmitted to drive motor 30 and brake 105 bycable 47 and cause the output of the corresponding transducer to beconnected to amplifier 108 by cable 51. Such signal triggering therelease of said brake 105 and the simultaneous automatic rotation ofsaid co-operating turn-tables as is conventionally well-known in theprior art. The turn-tables subsequently stopped automatically upon themanual release of the depressed switch key thereby re-engaging thebrake. Sufficient time is available between the end of any broadcastedrecorded sound and the manual depression of the next selected switchingkey for further successive complete cycles of a single turn-tablerevolution. The amplifier 108, in turn, is connected to speaker 109 bylead 52 and causes the prerecorded sounds from the selected groove oneither record, 101 or 201, to be broadcast by the speaker 109. It isnoted that sufficient time is available for such manual operation of theapparatus of the invention as noted hereinabove, inasmuch as at 33% rpm(which is approximately 2 seconds per revolution), and since eachmessage element takes only about a second of time to recite,approximately one-half of the recorded means on any track remains unusedbefore the recorded means reaches its initial starting position for eachof the recorded message elements. Thus, it is virtually impossible forone using the device properly to operate a switching key at the wrong"time, such as in the middle of digit, letter, etc. because almost halfof each track in the disk is void of a message element. It is thusclearly inherent in the operation of such an apparatus that each cycleof operation occurs within a single revolution of the turn-tables.

By the extension of the principles demonstrated above it is possible toerect message generating devices which have access to a numberrecordings; FIG. 11 demonstrates the vocabulary of one such machineprovided with six recording faces, either by six separate records,according to the art of FIG. 10, or by the six faces of three recordsaccording to the art of FIG. 8. These six recording faces each carrythirty distinct prerecorded sound components which provide a musicalscale of two and a half octaves, the ordinal numbers in such a mannerthat any sensible combination may be derived, a set of words to composeany arbitrary message concerned with the use of such numbers in ordinaryspeech, the letters of the alphabet as well as the Morse-codeequivalents of the alphabetic and number records.

While the above embodiments have been illustrated with references to thecommonly utilized recording disk of the phonograph arts, it isunderstood that any analogous recording method and medium is equallyapplicable in the present invention; in particular the use of othersizes of recording disks, other speeds of drive, the use of impressedmagnetic fields in a suitable surface stratum and the use of cylindricaldrums as the recording forms are to be understood.

What is claimed is:

1. In a manually operated device having a frame for the generation ofaudible messages from pre-recorded sound components, comprising incombination:

a keyboard having a plurality of keys each bearing an indicia;

recorded means in the form of one or more bodies of revolution carryingon the surfaces thereof a multiplicity of pre-recorded message elementsin parallel, finite arcuate tracks on at least one side of said recordedmeans;

shaft means, rotatively supported by bearing means in said frame, forsupporting said recorded means about its rotational axis of generationin said frame;

means for restraining relative rotational motion as between saidrecorded means and said shaft means;

drive means for impelling the rotational motion of said shaft means at auniform velocity and cooperatively associated brake means, for normallyarresting rotational motion of said shaft means of said recorded means;

a plurality of transducer means, each one of said transducer means beingin permanent alignment with one of said tracks for reading saidprerecorded message elements on said track and converting same intoelectrical signals of fluctuating intensity;

amplifying means for said signals of fluctuating intensity;

broadcast means for the conversion of said signals of fluctuatingintensity to audible sound;

control means, including a plurality of switching elements havingcontact means, for controlling signals transmitted to said brake means,whereby upon sequentially depressing manually selected keys having thedesired indicia to be broadcasted as sequential audible messageelements, said brake means is released upon each depression of a singlekey thereby permitting rotation of said recorded means, and upon themanual release of each of said depressed keys said brake means isre-engaged to stop said rotation; and

each of said message elements occupying substantially less then saidfull arcuate tracks so as to enable the manual release of said depressedkey within the completion of one single revolution of said recordedmeans.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein said transducers aredisposed on both sides of said record means, whereby both sides of therecord means may be corded means is in the form of a substantially flat,circular disk of plastic material and said tracks form substantiallyparallel circular arcs on said disks; and said recorded means beingrotated at approximately 33% rpm.

1. In a manually operated device having a frame for the generation ofaudible messages from pre-recorded sound components, comprising incombination: a keyboard having a plurality of keys each bearing anindicia; recorded means in the form of one or more bodies of revolutioncarrying on the surfaces thereof a multiplicity of pre-recorded messageelements in parallel, finite arcuate tracks on at least one side of saidrecorded means; shaft means, rotatively supported by bearing means insaid frame, for supporting said recorded means about its rotational axisof generation in said frame; means for restraining relative rotationalmotion as between said recorded means and said shaft meaNs; drive meansfor impelling the rotational motion of said shaft means at a uniformvelocity and co-operatively associated brake means, for normallyarresting rotational motion of said shaft means of said recorded means;a plurality of transducer means, each one of said transducer means beingin permanent alignment with one of said tracks for reading saidpre-recorded message elements on said track and converting same intoelectrical signals of fluctuating intensity; amplifying means for saidsignals of fluctuating intensity; broadcast means for the conversion ofsaid signals of fluctuating intensity to audible sound; control means,including a plurality of switching elements having contact means, forcontrolling signals transmitted to said brake means, whereby uponsequentially depressing manually selected keys having the desiredindicia to be broadcasted as sequential audible message elements, saidbrake means is released upon each depression of a single key therebypermitting rotation of said recorded means, and upon the manual releaseof each of said depressed keys said brake means is reengaged to stopsaid rotation; and each of said message elements occupying substantiallyless then said full arcuate tracks so as to enable the manual release ofsaid depressed key within the completion of one single revolution ofsaid recorded means.
 2. The device according to claim 1, wherein saidtransducers are disposed on both sides of said record means, wherebyboth sides of the record means may be utilized simultaneously so as tosubstantially increase the number of possible message units.
 3. Thedevice according to claim 1, wherein the number of pre-recorded messageelements is a function of the number of recording grooves or paralleltracks in said record means.
 4. The device according to claim 1, whereinsaid recorded means is in the form of a substantially flat, circulardisk of plastic material and said tracks form substantially parallelcircular arcs on said disks; and said recorded means being rotated atapproximately 33 1/3 rpm.